The Scavengers -Vince Edwards (1958) - View from Penha Hill, Macau

When I fist saw this next scene it immediately brought to memory a location mystery that cropped upon Gwulo many years ago and had us all scratching our heads. If you follow that link and read the comments you'll see we had a hard time reconciling it with anywhere in Hong Kong despite the fact that the image's original title had it located in Hong Kong. I guess it's a good lesson in how you should always treat any photo description with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Suffice to say it was eventually located thanks to an local discussion forum called Uwants which I have used myself in the past when looking for older images of obscure areas in Kowloon and Hong Kong.

This is a now very much changed southwest view from Penha Hill in Macau looking towards a cluster of islands that have now been absorbed into the Zhuhai mainland next to Macau. The low, stone wall of the Penha Church courtyard is quite obvious in this image (and it remains the same to this day). It wouldn't surprise me at all if the stone bench seen bottom right is one of the ones still there today.

Karate from Shaolin Temple - Kazuma Kenji (1976) - Penha Church, Macau

Next up is a trip up to the top of Penha Hill and its namesake church. It's been a popular filming location over the years. This is the first time I recall the chapel inside being featured though, but I am probably wrong after seeing so many films over the years.

Asia-Pol Secret Service - Wang Yu (1966) - Macau Peninsula

As part of the wind down towards the film's finale, the story moves to Macau and the first establishing shot we see is a view of the peninsula with Penha Church dominating the skyline. If only that was still the case.

Les Anges Gardiens - Gerard Depardieu (1995) - Penha Church, Macau

Some more Penha Church as Depardieu and his new charge manage to evade the triads by jumping over a wall and landing...in the courtyard of Penha Church. Quite an impressive feat considering the distance between Kowloon and Macau. Anyway, the priest is giving a sermon when Depardieu gatecrashes and then persuades the priest to take the boy in under his charge. This church, its courtyard and the view from it have featured in quite a few films seen on this blog over the years.

Les Anges Gardiens - Gerard Depardieu (1995) - Penha Church, Macau

Penha Church pops up a couple of times in the film because it is standing in as a boarding school. The first time we see it is when we are introduced to Christian Clavier's priest character who runs the school and looks after the kids. I've never been inside the church or associated buildings so can't comment on whether or not this was filmed completely on location, however, I'm including the first few images (shot on the courtyard in front of the church) to document the reclamation that was going on at the time to create the two bits of inland water Lago Sai Van and Lago Nam Van. You can see them beginning to take shape.

 And a quick look through the main doors.

Vengeance - Johnny Hallyday (2009) - Penha Hill, Macau

Hallyday's daughter and her family supposedly live in a big house on Penha Hill in Macau - we are given a rather nice establishing shot to set up this little detail. However, I can't find the house yet and it may take some time (because I think it was more likely filmed in HK) but until I can track it down, here is that nice shot with Penha Church sitting at the top of the hill.

Challenge of the Tiger - Bruce Le (1982) - Penha Church, Macau

Harrison goes to meet his nemesis spy (the girl who picked him up on the beach) at Penha Church to find out where his kidnapped colleague has been taken. We only catch a brief glimpse of the church itself and most of the shots were taken on the courtyard in front with views over to the Lisboa.

This final picture is of the sloped driveway that leads from the main gate, up the side of the church to the front courtyard.

Jaguar Lives - Joe Lewis (1978) - Penha Church, Macau

Our last post for Jaguar Lives for the time being as we see Joe (or at least a stuntman) busting some moves on the square in front of Penha Church.

The last picture gives us a nice view looking towards Taipa and the Ponte Governador Nobre de Carvalho connecting Taipa to the Macau peninsula.

Jaguar Lives - Joe Lewis (1978) - Inner Harbour, Macau

Over to Macau now for a quick visit and some sights around the inner harbour area including the floating casino, the Kwong Hing Tai Firecracker company building (or at least the back of it facing the water) and a few more places worth mentioning.

In the above screencap we can see Joe surveying the shoreline. The low art deco style building in the centre screen is still around. I don't know anything about it but like its style and can see from Streetview that it is currently housing a company called "Tak Wah". Obviously we don't have "Waterview" yet, so I've had to settle for this land-side image from Streetview. It seems to be a working warehouse still. Incidentally, the building directly under Joe's chin is the former Grande Hotel. We looked at this place a few posts ago in Robert Mitchum's Macao.

The next shot is not a great one for scenery courtesy of the fact that ol' Joe is blocking most of it, but look on the right and you can see Penha Church up on the hill.

The next shot shows the back of the Kwong Hing Tai Firecracker building on the water. This is a great art deco style building and was once the feature of a post on my old blog. I shall resurrect it at some point but until then you can see the waterside rear of the building where firecrackers were loaded off onto boats for distribution. We also have a view of the stylish front courtesy of Streetview again.

Finally, here is the famous floating Casino looking less than splendid thanks to the fact that it was covered in bamboo scaffolding when they filmed this. It was called the Casino Macau Palace and has been seen here a couple of times in the past. It's gone now, but not sure when.

Macao - Robert Mitchum (1952) - Inner Harbour, Macau

Another black and white film noir, this time starring Robert Mitchum who was featured on this blog last year courtesy of his starring role in Robert Clouse's The Amsterdam Kill. Macao was one of the first western films to be set in the "Far East" and unlike Target Hong Kong (made on the cheap using stock footage from Hong Kong and Shanghai to set the scene), RKO (the production company) sent  cameraman, Dick Davol, to Macau and Hong Kong in order to capture various bits of footage to be interwoven into the story as well as used for back projection back at the studio.

An interesting feature of Davol's trip seems to be that he had to run up a rather significant expense account paying bribes to the local authorities so he could film notably this included the Police Forces of both HK and Macau as well as the various boat owners, immigration officers, customs officers and even the Communist patrol boat crews!

Anyway, we shall start off this particular film with a view from the inner harbour looking towards the southern end of the peninsula. The camera work is a bit blurry and being black and white adds a little to the lack of clarity but if you looks carefully you should be able to the see the back end of Penha Church up on the hill (top left) and directly under it, about halfway down the hill, looks to be the Moorish Barracks building - the latter caught at a time when it could still be seen from sea level.

I don't know what the curved building is on the waterfront but its position tallies with the modern day Capitania Dos Portos (i.e. Macau Port Authority). You can just see the low rise shop houses along the waterfront (Rua Do Almirante Sergio), there are a few examples left but are now mostly hidden from view by various developments that have cropped up along the old pier areas.

Kung Fu Killers - Grant Page (1974) - Penha Church, Macau

A brief glimpse of the church itself followed by a panorama that could only really have been taken from the hilltop where the church is sited.

I say the panorama was most likely taken from atop of Penha Hill because there is a strikingly similar view seen in Ferry to Hong Kong that I posted about last year. Click here for the post I am referring to.

In fact we even get a brief zoom in to Green Island ( the same Green Island of the famous Green Island Cement fame) or to call it by its Portuguese name: Ilha Verde. You can see it below, in front of the distant mountain range.

Ferry to Hong Kong - Curt Jurgens (1959) - Penha Church, Macau

Well, seeing as I have just been theorising about the use of the Penha Church roof as a possible location for a camera shot of the inner harbour, I think the view of the same church in a later scene may lend some credibility to my theory. (NB: this later scene was preceded by a single shot from the earlier sequence where we can see the cross again).

Anyway, here is a brief glimpse of the side of the church as a funeral procession makes its way down the hill from the church towards the ferry. So, first off we have a repeat of the same angle from earlier (probably Penha Church cross n the right).

The next shot sees our funeral procession walking down a hill. I will make an educated guess here and say that it was probably the path that runs down the side of the hill next to the Penha Church.

I make the previous assumption (despite me knowing how geography is often messed around with in films) because the same scene shows us looking up the hill with a piece of the Church visible in the background.

Anyway, there is still a small road that runs down the side of the hill and I wouldn't be surprised to find out that it was the same one - albeit now with a rather more obscured view - or at least a path than ran just next to the current road (I say that because there is a retaining wall on the film grab that looks similar in design to the wall we see on the side of the road in the streetview picture below). The road runs up to the car park below the church which can be seen in the lower picture. 

Ferry to Hong Kong - Curt Jurgens (1959) - Macau Peninsula, Macau

One of my favourite shots from the various Macau portions of the film (remember, it may be called Ferry to Hong Kong, but the film revolves around a man stuck on a HK - Macau Ferry, so we also see some of the latter) is the following panning shot that takes in a view of the inner harbour.

This view shows the panorama of Macau that I really wish I had been around to see. So sleepy and low rise - vastly different to the place today with its monstrous tacky casinos.

Anyway, the vista looks as though it may possibly have been filmed from the back of Penha Church - the cross in the top picture looks very similar to one of those that sits at the rear (west facing) part of the church building. The ferry is steaming along towards the inner harbour area for its stop.